Festival
by Trombone geek150
Summary: This is a fictional story about a middle school concert band playing at a festival. It is in the point of view of their first trombone player, Sara. 'Tis a one shot.


Festival

  


Disclaimer: The music mentioned here is not my work. Huckleberry Groove is a real band, therefore it does not belong to me.

* * *

Festival. 

It was one word that had invoked fear and nervousness into my peer's hearts. For me, and probably the other section leaders, it simply was another chance to play for professionals. To Mr. Carten, my band director, it probably meant two things, lots of had work, and reacting 10 times more strongly to the band's score then the band itself.

My name is Sara Gordan. I am first chair and section leader for the Charleston Middle School eighth grade trombone section. My section is only made up of myself and one other person. I've been playing for two years, mostly on a Yamaha student trombone, but I recently got a Conn 88H for orchestra. Besides band and orchestra, I play first trombone in a jazz band. Jazz festival was last week though. Today is our concert band festival, which, we only recently found out, is a high school festival.

We've preparing since mid-October, just after our first football game. Now, January 28, after two and a half months of hard-core rehearsals and sectionals, we're performing for a rating. We get to leave after first hour, which is our band class. Most of this period will be spent loading large instruments into a truck, and figuring who will sit where on the busses. Since our band is large, we get two busses, one for the majority of the band and some chaperones, and one for the section leaders and band directors.

At the end of first hour, we loaded the busses and waited for Mr. Carten to come to take a head count. I don't really know why he didn't do it earlier, since we were sitting in the band room in our concert formation.

I had stopped paying attention at that point, so I didn't realize that Mr. Carten had walked over, sat down in the seat across from me, and started talking to me. Slightly embarrassed, I asked him to repeat.

"Could you warm up the band when we get to the school? I'm going to need to finish some paper work and get everything ready for when we perform, and might not have time to warm you up." He repeated. I grinned at this. I loved conducting, since I taught myself how to earlier in my career.

"Of course, Mr. Carten! I'm slightly curious though, why can't Mr. Savage do it? He is the assistant band director after all." I said, suddenly realizing that if I was asked to warm-up the band, then Mr. Savage either wasn't going to be there, or he wasn't trusted enough to warm us up.

"Mr. Savage still has his high school class to attend to, so he has decided not to join us today."

No Mr. Savage? This is generally considered a cause for celebration, as Mr. Savage is about as mean as you can get, without actually hurting anyone. As it was agreed that I would warm up the band, we spoke no more. Mr. Carten read Tales from Band Camp, a band comic book, and I listened to Huckleberry Groove. 

Finally, after two and a half hours on a bus with crazy section leaders, we were at the host school for festival. We had about half an hour until we were to perform. That meant getting large instruments out and finding the room in about five minutes, warming up for about 20 minutes, then spending five minutes standing at attention just off stage, most people nervously waiting to go on.

I helped get the tubas to their owners, then grabbed my horn and led the way. Since Mr. Carten had to hurry with the paper work (which had to be finished and turned in five minutes before our designated performance time, at the latest), he left immediately, leaving me and the other section leaders in charge. The room was quickly found by Eve, the clarinet section leader, who, despite not having a good sense of direction, had a good deal of luck.

As it turns out, our warm-up room was the schools band room. This meant that we would get good acoustics, and there would be a podium. The Acoustics don't matter so much, since we're use to playing our concerts in a gym, where everything boomed or, when you tried to put yourself in time with your peers instead of Mr. Carten, the sound would faze . I wrote the warm-up on the board, starting with the articulation example and lip slurs (long tones for the woodwinds).

Conducting is totally different then playing an instrument. As you stand on the podium, waiting for the band to look up at you, you can see exactly who people are, the ones that disrespect you simply because your no older, and in their opinion, no better then them. You can see the ones that will respect you, not because you are their friend, or their section leader, or the only person in the band who made it into the All-State band, but because you are at the front, commanding their attention, and they have been taught to listen to you. Everything comes together, and you become the absolute leader, not through power, but authority.

That's how it is with a student conducting this band, anyway. And that's what I saw, and how I felt when I stepped up there. As the band played through the scales, I realized that my mouthpiece was in my pocket. I must have subconsciously put it there when we were setting up. An instant warm-up when you couldn't play was simply heating your mouthpiece. The heat from your mouthpiece when you played would transfer to your lips, giving them the life needed to play that high Bb in the first movement of a piece.

I had them play the circle of fifths after the lips slurs. The circle of fifths goes through all the major scales and is generally difficult for an eighth grade band. I noted that some people were, indeed, having trouble with it. We'd have to work on that more in class. After the circle of fifths was the chromatic scale. It was only one octave, but it was hard to remember all the fingers in order sometimes.

We were done warming up after 15 minutes. We that meant that we would hang out for five minutes, going over our music without actually playing, then stand just off stage for five, and then it would be us. The only plus was that it was a weekday, so there wouldn't be many people in the audience, except for maybe a couple of bands and overly supportive band parents.

Five more minutes had passed. We were going on in five. In five minutes we would be judged, and whatever rating would reflect on our band, and the entire school. It wouldn't necessarily be personal, unless a comment came up that pointed out a certain section. I guess the worst part was the fact that if we didn't do well, then we would probably get a lecture about it tomorrow in band class.

Mr. Carten walked pass, smiling at us. He announced us, and then we came on, stoond in front of our chairs, and waited to be seated. We played the March of the Nightcrawlers first. It was an odd piece, with not a lot of actual playing. We snapped, clapped, 'shh'-ed, stomped, and the brass got to buzz on their mouthpieces. To put it simply, it was easy, fun to play, and it sounded cool to the audience.

And so we went on. Our second piece was called The Peanut Vendor. It was a piece that we played in jazz band last year, and we recently got one for full band. One of the favorite parts of the piece was the trombone auxiliary section. We picked up claves and a cow bell and played some cool rhythms for about twenty measures. The other part was Eve's and my solos. We played them shortly after the trombone auxiliary, one after the other. I couldn't improvise, like I normally would, since this was concert band, we both had to play the written solo.

We finished the piece and each stood for applause. Only one more piece.

This piece was the hardest. It is called Prairie Dances by Pierre LaPlante. Meant for a high school band, it had complicated 6/8 and 3/4 time changes, and rhythms. We had a hard time with it, but we had fun. I could only hope that it showed in the way we played, so they wouldn't mark us down for playing something that was so beyond us.

The last note hit (it was the bass drum) and we and we waited for the cue to lower our instruments. I led the band off the stage, and realized that the trombones had lagged in the end. That was the last thing we needed as last year at festival the same thing had happened in the oboes and the band got a 2. We went to the cafeteria, to wait for our scores, and to have a mini post-festival pizza party. It didn't matter what we got, we did as good as we possibly could, and would get the rating that we deserved because of that.

It was getting late though, and the vast majority of the band was tired. It was agreed upon that the band minus the section leaders and Mr. Carten would go home, and Mr. Carten and the section leaders would wait for the scores.

The comments came first, about half and hour after we left. Apparently, the judges had noticed the lagging, and decided that it wasn't that important. The only comment that stuck out was one about our bass drum. It said: 'Your bass drum sounds like a dead cow. I suggest you fix it.' It was an odd comment to make and we weren't quite sure why it was made. It had sounded just fine to everyone else.

Unfortunately, our band was the last one posted, so we sat there a while, but when we finally got our score, we were overjoyed. We had gotten ones on everything, except for sight reading, which we didn't do, because we were the only middle school band there. Extremely happy, we boarded the bus and headed out. We couldn't wait to get home to celebrate.

* * *

**The was originally going to be part of a series of short stories about the Charleston Band, but I don't know if I'm gonna write the others. Probably will some day at least. Please review, as constructive criticism can help me become better.**


End file.
